Efficient and economic use of harvested rain water for sustainable crop production under rainfed agriculture

A field experiment was conducted from kharif 2006 to 2012 on sites at the AICRP for dry land agriculture, centre for watershed management partnership research & rural engineering, S.D Agricultural University, Sardarkrushinagar (North Gujarat) under arid and semi-arid agro-climatic zone. The different treatments viz., T1: Control, T2: Control with FYM @ 5 t ha-1, T3: One life saving irrigation, T4: One life saving irrigation with FYM@ 5 t ha-1, T5: Two lifesaving irrigation, T6: Two life saving irrigation with FYM @ 5 t ha-1 were tried out in efficient and economic use of harvested rain water for sustainable crop production. The results revealed that the seed and stalk yield of castor affected significantly due to different treatment during all the years as well as in pooled results. The highest yield of castor 957.8 kg ha-1 (Pooled) was recorded under treatment of two life saving irrigation with FYM @ 5 t ha-1, which is 59.92 percent higher than control (598.9 kg ha-1). It was followed by two life saving irrigation(815.2 kg/ha), which is 36.11 percent higher than control (598.9 kg ha-1), one life saving irrigation with FYM @ 5 t ha-1 (795.0 kg ha-1), 32.74 percent higher than control. The stalk yield of castor was also observed highest under treatment two life saving irrigation with FYM @ 5 t ha-1 (1110 kg ha-1), 64.73 percent higher than control followed by two life saving irrigation, one life saving irrigation with FYM @ 5 t ha-1 and one life saving irrigation. The maximum B: C ratio (2.99) and water use efficiency (1.08) was also under treatment of two life saving irrigation with FYM @ 5 t ha-1.